


heavy head in a heavy crown

by texasreznikova



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Minor Original Character(s), POV Alternating, Pre-Canon, Slow-ish burn, enemies to lovers but make it enemies still kind of to actual lovers, you know the drill
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:41:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27816238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/texasreznikova/pseuds/texasreznikova
Summary: Twenty four-year-old Effie has recently been reassigned as District Twelve after a brief, disastrous run as District Eight's escort. She finds herself clashing with, and intrigued by, the sole District Twelve victor with a fondness for bourbon and running his mouth.
Relationships: Haymitch Abernathy/Effie Trinket
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter One - Sixty-Third Games

_Heavy head in a heavy crown_  
_Had a few since you came to town_  
_Where are you gonna keep them still?_  
_Winning's losing with a couple strings_  
_It's a choosing between two things_  
_It's a two-piece suit or all the frills_

Calpurnia Lowell at Corporate made it absolutely clear that Effie’s reassignment was not a demotion, lest she get any ideas. Effie doesn’t believe her for a moment.

It isn’t her fault District Eight had a rather unlikeable crop of tributes two years in a row. Penny and Rush, her first year, were both fifteen and seemed moldable enough at first, but they’d been sullen and withdrawn through all the interviews and training. Rush didn’t gain a single sponsor before he was struck dead not five feet from the cornucopia; Penny died third, and very unglamourous, after being bitten by a mosquito and coming down with equine encephalitis. Year two was not much better, and Fia, the eighteen-year-old girl who’d already been working in a garment factory for six years, made more than a few of Effie’s higher-ups wince when she spat at Caesar Flickerman, “do you think any of us actually want to be here?”

(Effie learns, years later, that it was the Fia Incident that convinced Caesar’s show to implement a five-second delay on their live broadcasts)

District Twelve is rotten luck but at this point Effie can’t believe they haven't fired her. She was only hired, twenty-two and fresh out of university, because her father pulled a few strings, and no one knew that better than Effie herself. And now, two years and four dead tributes later, she still has a job. She suspects her father had something to do with that too.

The mountains in Twelve are lower, and softer, than the ones back home; older, too, with enough time for nature to colonize them and cover them in thick green woods and, of course, ancient reserves of coal. Effie’s primary experience with mountains, apart from the skiing holidays she and her friends took every February, is the hazy background of the Rockies that had been outside her window, without fail, in every home she’d ever lived; in her bedroom at home, at her dorm at university, and in her downtown flat now. 

District Eight had been flat, so flat you could have seen for miles if the buildings weren’t in the way. Flat land, flat people with flat accents and flat, listless expressions. In spite of herself, she almost likes District Twelve already.

The first person she meets from District Twelve is Mayor Evans, an unremarkable, balding man with pale blue eyes and a face too engraved with lines for a man in his thirties or forties. He shakes her hand vigorously; gives her a tour of the Justice Building, which is decrepit and musty and just plain sad; shows her black-and-white photos of miners and woven baskets and funny-looking stringed instruments that live behind glass and haven’t been played in generations. 

At the end of the tour, Mayor Evans does something strange. He looks Effie square in the eye and says, “my son Rowan is twelve. I know it’s unlikely, since he’s only going to be entered once, but -- “ he swallows, hard. “I know there isn’t anything you can do about it, ma’am. I’m sorry. My paternal emotions got the best of me.”  
Effie wonders distantly if her father would break protocol to plead for her life, if her life was ever in jeopardy. Somehow, she doubts it.

“I understand, Mayor,” she tells him. “You’re right that I have no say in who is reaped, but if Roman -- “

“Rowan.”

She nods. “If _Rowan_ is reaped I assure you he will receive the best of care and hospitality on his journey to the Games.”

The line is something straight out of Human Resources. Calpurnia Lowell would be proud. Despite herself, Effie feels a twinge of -- not guilt, exactly, but embarrassment. Shame. She can’t bring herself to look Mayor Evans in the eye as he escorts her back to her car.

**

Not half a mile away from the Justice Building, in a gloomy old townhouse in the Victors’ Village, Haymitch Abernathy is drinking bourbon for breakfast. This isn’t unusual, though cheaper liquor is usually his meal of choice. But today is a special occasion, and Haymitch is going to treat himself however he damn well pleases.

The gap between the Victory Tour and Reaping Day seems to narrow every year. It couldn’t have been more than a couple months ago, could it, since Haymitch was forced to haul his ass to the town square and watch those smirking careers give their smug little condolence speech to the grieving families of two more skinny gray-eyed kids, two more kids who could’ve been Haymitch’s nieces and nephews and cousins.

But that was January, and now it is July, and it ‘s fucking Reaping Day again, which is even worse, somehow. Haymitch takes another swig of bourbon, swishes it around in his mouth until his tongue tingles and grows numb. He swallows, and chases it with a bag of chips so he doesn’t throw up onstage later. The chips are colorless and taste mostly of salt. They’re the cheap kind from Hawkins’ Grocery, not any fancy Capitol snack befitting a victor.

 _I killed a bunch of kids for the Capitol_ , thinks Haymitch sourly, _you’d think they’d send me better snacks._

He finds his suit fallen from a hanger, in a heap above some old t-shirts and underwear Haymitch forgot existed at the back of his closet, and puts it on. He smooths the wrinkles a little, but they’re stubborn, and reappear when he removes his hand. Oh, well; Haymitch hasn’t owned an iron in years.

He ties his tie -- thin, and yellow -- and looks at himself in the mirror. He combs his hair, and makes a face. He’s not half-bad looking, he thinks, for a thirty-year-old drunk, but he’s far from Capitol-handsome. 

Perdita, the surly older woman who’s been Twelve’s escort since before Haymitch was born, finally retired last year, and he wonders who her replacement is going to be. Rumor down at the pub was that she was a reject from a more prosperous district, but Haymitch doesn’t keep close enough track of the other districts’ escorts to have a clear idea of who might have been incompetent enough to suffer this fate.

The square is in walking distance. Not that Haymitch has much of a choice, considering he had his license suspended back in September. And besides, he’s one of only a handful of District Twelve folks that can actually afford a car and gasoline, and he’s never been one to flaunt his wealth in other people’s faces, especially considering where that wealth comes from.

At least no one here really despises him, he doesn’t think; when they cast lingering glances his way they’re mostly out of pity. His win was a stroke of rare luck; before him, there hadn’t been a victor from District Twelve in forty years. And even though nearly everyone here hated the Games, and all they stood for, it was nice to have a victor.

As he draws closer to the square and the crowds grow thicker, he wishes he had the luxury of blending in, of being another face in the crowd. But this year, like every year for over a decade, he is supposed to give a speech.

He holds his palm flat against his mouth and blows hard. His breath still smells of bourbon. He hopes Mayor Evans, and whoever the new escort is, don’t notice.

For now, he is escorted by two peacekeepers to the front row, where he’s supposed to sit until it’s his time to get up onstage. He can’t see under the frosted black glass of their helmets, of course, but Haymitch swears they almost look bored.

Those lucky citizens who have the distinction of sitting in reserved seating actually get to sit down, not stand, in metal folding chairs. There’s six of them, separated from the masses by a velvet rope; one chair each for Mayor Evans and his wife and children, one for Haymitch, and one for Perdita. Guests of honor at the world’s cruelest banquet.

He catches a glimpse of Perdita’s successor, and it’s a woman, he can tell, though he can’t see much else, since she’s obscured behind the mayor, who is not a small man.

And then Mayor Evans stretches, and he gets a good look.

It’s hard to tell how old Capitol folks are, sometimes, with all the makeup and plastic surgery, but this woman isn’t very old at all. She might be Haymitch’s age, or a decade older or younger, but she’s no stern old crone like Perdita. She is small -- _dainty_ \-- with a firm jaw and very pale, almost white skin. Her hair is a silvery white, too, and carefully coiffed with not a strand out of place. 

She catches him staring, and blinks at him. He averts his gaze quickly. The woman’s a little scary and, even without the ruthless Capitol values she’s bound to espouse, he doesn’t think he’d like to end up on her bad side.

He gives his speech, something nondescript and nonthreatening about being the underdog, and being privileged even to take part, focusing more on not slurring his words than on what he’s saying. His eyes wander to the crowd again. No one seems to be listening particularly closely. They’ve got other things on their minds, Haymitch knows, better things to worry about than the propagandistic platitudes of a hapless drunk. Even the new escort lady looks bored. She has those long nails Capitol ladies sometimes wear, the ones always make him think of mountain lion claws, and she’s rubbing them together impatiently, _clack, clack_ , loud enough that Haymitch can hear them from the stage.

He decides he is going to reward himself with the rest of the bourbon bottle at lunch. For behaving. When he’s done, even the applause is listless and miserable. Haymitch swears it’s a tougher crowd every year. He returns to his folding chair and dreams about lunch as Evans says a few more empty words and the god-awful video plays. It’s the same video as every year; Haymitch could mouth along the words by heart, if he cared enough. 

Which he doesn’t.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics at the beginning (and the fic title) are from Heavy Crown by Trixie Mattel


	2. Chapter Two - Sixty-Third Games

Effie reaches into the glass bowl. Her acrylic nails scrape against the side as her hand closes over the first name. She pulls the piece of paper and reads in her peppiest voice, “Ornella Oxendine!”

She finds herself wincing as a skinny girl who can’t be older than thirteen, all elbows and knees and flyaway hairs escaping from her dark braids, is escorted by a peacekeeper to the stage.

Ornella holds her sharp chin high and steady as Effie asks, to no avail, for volunteers, but when Effie glances at her grey eyes, she sees her blinking back hot, angry tears.

Her voice trembles as she says, “and now, for the boys,” but she’s not sure why.

The boy is Ezra Birch, and he is older, stronger-looking. Despite herself Effie almost thinks he could win. He has a coif of blond hair that sits at the top of a close-cropped head like a wave and muscular arms beneath his white dress shirt, and as he takes his place on the stage, Effie scans the crowd, looking inconsolable for family members or friends, anyone who might be heartbroken at Ezra’s reaping, but she can’t find anyone.

She clasps her hands together in front of her chin and takes a sharp breath. She asks again for volunteers, and again, no one comes forward.

So it will be Ornella and Ezra who die.

She’s not supposed to admit that, even to herself. She’s supposed to pretend that they have a chance, all the way up until they go. But even Ezra is pathetic and puny next to the hardened careers in Districts One and Two. Her tributes will, inevitably, be crushed like ants under a shoe.

Effie takes a seat in one of the folding chairs on the stage. She crosses her ankles primly, stares down at the swathes of spring-green fabric that obscure her legs right down to her ankles. Mayor Evans reads the Treaty of Treason, Ornella and Ezra shake hands.

Effie rises, like everyone else, for the national anthem, puts her manicured hand over her heart as it swells. It reaches a crescendo as she accidentally makes eye contact with Haymitch Abernathy in the front row. His eyes are gray, she notices, the exact same shade as Ornella’s. She wonders if they’re related; what rotten luck that would be.

Effie is ordinarily very good at telling what people are feeling, but she cannot read his expression.

He averts his eyes quickly when he notices, and Effie presses her lips together as she does the same. She feels unwelcome here in a way she never did in District Eight. The old victors there, at least, had seemed to like her.

  
  


**

On the train, Ornella and Ezra are as moody as Rush and Penny were. Effie monologues self-consciously about high-speed rail and the beef bourguignon they’re having for lunch. Neither of them turn their heads from the window. And there’s nothing to  _ see _ out the window, not at this speed. Effie thinks she spots the smog and tenement blocks and cornfields of District Eight in the blur, but she isn’t sure.

She stops talking. Ornella and Ezra don’t even seem to notice.

Haymitch is here. Of course he’s here. He’s sitting in one of the leather seats and taking hearty swigs of something out of a coffee cup that Effie is quite sure isn’t coffee. She pretends not to notice.

He talks to her first, after an hour or two of uncomfortable, heavy silence.

“Effie, huh?” 

She rewards him with a tight smile. “That’s me.”

He takes another sip of not-coffee. “That don’t sound like a Capitol name.”

“Well, I’m a Capitol girl,” she says. “Never lived anywhere else. The Trinkets were Founders. We’ve been there ever since Boston got swallowed up by the ocean.”

“Huh,” says Haymitch, clearly uninterested.

“My proper name is Euphemia,” she confides, “but I’ve always been Effie, ever since I was a little girl.”

Haymitch snorts. “Euphemia. That’s appropriately snooty and ridiculous.”

“I was named for my great-grandmother, Euphemia Cabbitt. No doubt you’ve heard of her. First female Minister of Media?”

“I have not.”

“Hmm.” That strange feeling begins to creep into Effie’s throat again, the not-quite-guilt. “There’s statues and plaques and things all over the Capitol. I’d think you’d have noticed, with all the time you’ve spent there.”

Haymitch leans back against his elbows. He really does have atrocious posture. Not that Effie expects any better from someone from District Twelve, even a victor. You could put up a District man in a house in the middle of the Capitol, as the saying went, but he’d never really be a citizen. 

“I tend to pay as little attention to my surroundings when I’m forced to be in the Capitol as possible,” he tells her. “The first year I was a little busy trying not to die, and now…” He shrugs. “When you’ve seen it once, there’s not much to get excited about.”  
“Hmm,” says Effie again, which her mother always told her was the polite way to respond to someone who made you want to slap them. If she stays District Twelve’s escort for a while (and there’s no reason to assume she won’t; escorts here don’t exactly get fired for losing too many tributes, or else they’d be replaced every year) she predicts a lot of _hmm_ s in her future.

“Do you mind if I ask you a question,” she ventures. 

Haymitch shrugs again.

“Shoot.”

Effie inclines her head over to Ornella and Ezra, who still look like they’d rather be just about anywhere else. “Are they always…  _ like this _ ? Every year?”

Haymitch is staring at her. In the dim incandescent light of the train car, his eyes are the color of coal.

“Like  _ what _ ?”

“You know. Miserable. They’ll never get sponsors if they keep up -- “ Effie gestures vaguely -- “whatever this is.”

Haymitch shakes his head. “I don’t understand you people sometimes,” he mutters. He downs the last sip of not-coffee and slams the mug on the table a little too hard. Effie winces, and not just because it really is a very nice table. Haymitch is a wild man, aggressive and vigilant in his movements, even for a victor. He scares her a little. “You’re escorting a couple kids to their deaths. You’re not exactly taking them to the circus.”

“Being reaped is an honor, Haymitch, and I’m sure you know that,” says Effie coolly. 

Haymitch’s steady gaze doesn't leave her face. 

“An honor to who?”

Effie can’t answer him.

He keeps going. “Have you ever really watched the Games, Effie?”

Effie frowns. “I watch them every year, of course. Everyone does.”

“Do you remember the year I won?”

Effie pauses a moment. She does, kind of. She would have been ten. She mostly remembers that year’s Games because that was the year Mother let her and Cordie try a sip of wine for the first time at a viewing party. 

Haymitch holds up one of his hands, close to her face, almost like he’s about to slap her. Effie doesn’t flinch.

It’s large, and calloused, and under his nails is black with dirt. Effie wrinkles her nose. She’s pretty sure Haymitch has enough money for running water at home.

“I killed people, Effie,” says Haymitch gruffly. “I killed children. The only reason I’m still alive is because I killed other kids.” He sighs. “There was a girl…” 

Haymitch swallows. He doesn’t finish his sentence.

“You’ll have to excuse me, ma’am, it’s been a long day, and I’ve been drinking.”

_ I knew it _ , thinks Effie.

****

_ So the new escort’s a cold-hearted Capitol bitch. Big surprise _ , thinks Haymitch. He wasn’t expecting anything different. At least she’s nicer to look at than Perdita was, but she’s nice to look at like a vase of flowers or an exotic bird is nice to look at, not like a beautiful woman is supposed to be. Nothing like Briony, with her pink cheeks and soft body.

No, everything about Effie is hard, firm, with cut-glass cheekbones and that silly clipped Capitol accent he’s sure she must be affecting at least a little bit. Even President Snow’s isn’t that strong.

He doesn’t think she has feelings at all. But that’s not unusual. None of them do.

He can kind of see why she was fired from District Eight. She acts like she knows what she’s doing, but Haymitch knows she doesn’t. He can always tell. His eye for hidden nerves and inexperience smothered under overconfident bluffs was good for him, in the arena; he knew who to hide from, who to fear, who to kill. 

“Shouldn’t you be scolding them for not being cheerful enough, anyways,” he asks her. “Perdita did that to me, when I didn’t want to talk. Didn't just gripe about it to my mentor.”

She looks a little taken aback, like no one’s ever told her she’s doing her job wrong before.

“Right,” she says. She turns to Ornella, touches her gently on the shoulder. Ornella squirms.

“You’re going to have to be a little more likeable, darling, if you want to stand a chance out there in the arena.”

Ornella doesn’t answer.

“It’s all about ratings, in the end,” she pleads. “Can you at least give them a good show?”

Ezra shrugs. “Why do you care?”  
“It’s my job to care,” says Effie. Haymitch winces at her bluntness, but at least she’s being honest. That was one of Perdita’s few positive traits; she didn’t pretend that anyone was enjoying this. He was worried that Effie, in her pastels and perfect hair, would be intolerably saccharine, but so far she seems to be following in Perdita’s footsteps. At least she respects the tributes enough not to lie to them, he thinks. Or maybe she’s just bad at her job.

  
  


****

“I was always afraid to ask Perdita,” Haymitch says over beef bourguignon and his second mug of whiskey neat. “How the fuck _do_ you end up an escort?”  
“ _Language_ ,” says Effie in between two of the tiniest bites Haymitch has ever seen. She sighs. “I actually went to school for architecture, believe it or not,” she says. “But it was hard to break in, and Father had some Gamemaker connections, and --”  
“Ah,” Haymitch interrupts, “so your dad got you the job?” He smirks. “Mine would have too, if I hadn’t been reaped first. The bosses always give first priority to the kids whose fathers died in mining accidents. Pretty sad consolation prize, if you ask me.”

“I don’t think those are quite the same thing,” says Effie.

“I was a breaker boy for a little while,” Ezra pipes up. “A couple years ago when times were harder and people weren’t coming to Dad’s butcher shop so much.”

Haymitch nods. “Hard times will make Seam rats of us all,” he observes. He nods Effie’s way. “Except folks like her, of course. She’ll always be okay.”

Effie glares at him. Guess he’s started off on the wrong foot, Haymitch thinks.


	3. Chapter Three - Sixty-Third Games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the little delay, i'm taking finals and i've had computer issues, so i haven't been able to write as much as i'd like.  
> just a heads up, there is some sex in this chapter, but not presented in graphic enough detail to warrant an "explicit" rating. also a content warning for this chapter for mentions of canon-compliant prostitution of victors.

_Sometimes I don't know where_   
_This dirty road is taking me_   
_Sometimes I can't even see the reason why_   
_I guess I keep a-gamblin'_   
_Lots of booze and lots of ramblin'_   
_It's easier than just waitin' around to die_

_One time, friends, I had a ma_   
_I even had a pa_   
_He beat her with a belt once 'cause she cried_   
_She told him to take care of me_   
_Headed down to Tennessee_   
_It's easier than just waitin' around to die_

_I came of age and I found a girl_   
_In a Tuscaloosa bar_   
_She cleaned me out and hit in on the sly_   
_I tried to kill the pain, bought some wine_   
_And hopped a train_   
_Seemed easier than just waitin' around to die_

Tomorrow Ornella and Ezra will be paraded through the Capitol on a chariot, and then they will train and then they will die.

Haymitch isn’t supposed to care. He usually doesn’t. But there’s only so many years of dead Tributes he can take. It’s late, well past midnight, and the melatonin pill washed down with whiskey that usually helps hasn’t done anything. For all its faults, at least District Twelve has quiet nights. He’s turned off the wall screen, tried to lie in silent darkness, but he can still hear fireworks outside. 

_Don’t they get tired of celebrating watching us suffer_ , he wonders. 

“What time is it,” he mutters, and the wall screen blinks _3:08_ by way of answer. Underneath it informs him that it’s partly cloudy and 67 degrees in case he wants to know.

 _So they don’t get tired_ , thinks Haymitch. He is only twenty-nine, but he feels old in his bones. He wants to find someplace deep in Twelve to build a cabin and never have to go to a banquet or a Reaping or talk to any of these pastel-wigged sadists again. He thinks he’s probably ready to die.

He tries to close his eyes, but not five minutes later, someone raps gently on his door. At least he’s pretty sure -- who would do that, in a hotel at three AM? Besides, he can’t trust his senses in a place where the walls tell you the weather.

The rapping happens again. Haymitch groans, but he shuffles to the door and unlocks it. He blinks; again, he isn’t sure he can trust what he sees. It’s certainly not something he’d have expected in a thousand years.

Standing in his hotel room doorway is Effie Trinket.

At first he’s not even sure it’s her -- she’s almost unrecognizable bare-faced and dressed in pink silk pajamas, with a pink silk scarf covering her hair.

He looks down. She’s wearing slippers. They’re pink, too.

“What the hell are you doing here,” he manages. Distantly, he wonders if he’s in trouble.

But how could he be? He plays the part of a willing mentor well, unless the Capitol’s found some way to read his thoughts now. Which, for all he knows, they could have.

“I can’t sleep,” says Effie. “I don’t know anyone else staying here, and I thought I’d see what you were up to.” Her words are a little slurred.

“Have you been _drinking?_ ” asks Haymitch incredulously. 

“Just the wine with dinner. Have _you_ been drinking?”

“I’ve always been drinking,” says Haymitch with an awkward smile. He’s still not sure what he’s supposed to do.

“May I come in?”

Haymitch is too in shock to say anything, but he sort of coughs and gives his head a little incline that he guesses registers as a “yes”.

She comes in and sits on the grey leather loveseat that sits opposite the bed. _At least she’s not sitting_ on _the bed_ , thinks Haymitch. _That would be too weird_. Like this isn’t weird enough.

“Can I, uh, get you something to drink?” Haymitch only dimly registers his own words as he’s saying them. They sound disjointed and distant, like he’s watching himself on television.

“I’m all right,” says Effie. “I mostly just wanted to talk.” She sighs. “I’m more nervous than I was the last couple years.”

Haymitch is already at the minibar, fixing himself a nightcap. He glances over his shoulder as he replies.

“How come? You ain’t got nothin’ more to lose,” he says, daringly. 

“I can’t explain it,” says Effie. “It’s funny, it’s not until my job’s not on the line anymore that I start worrying about the outcome. I guess with the others I assumed they had a chance.”

She breathes in sharply, not meeting his eyes.

“Sorry,” she says. 

“Nah, don’t apologize,” Haymitch says. He takes his drink and sits on the bed, facing her. If she won’t look at him, he can look at her until she feels guilty. “You’re right.” 

He sighs. “Waiting around to die,” he mutters, which is a line from an old song his father used to sing. 

Effie arches the faint blonde outline of an eyebrow. “Pardon?”  
“Nothin’.”

Effie sighs heavily.

“The truth is, Haymitch, I think you’re ill-mannered and annoying at best, and downright barbaric at worst. But I haven’t been myself these last few days, and the stress is getting to me, and -- “ 

She looks a little wild-eyed just now, like a spooked horse. Haymitch is so fascinated by whatever the hell is going on that he forgets to be offended by the Capitol scorn she’s just hurled his way.

“And,” she continues matter-of-factly, “the truth is, I want to fuck you.”

For a moment, Haymitch can’t think clearly at all. This is so beyond anything he expected from the buttoned-up escort, he wonders if he heard her right. 

His first clear, collected thought, once he is finally able to think, is that this is an economic proposition. It must be.

The first years, when he was still young and desirable, he was better-known, of course. It was an open secret that Capitol ladies -- mostly bored housewives and socialites -- and more than a few Capitol men, too, paid a lot of money to sleep with victors. Haymitch never saw a penny of it, of course, but the Capitol hadn’t given him much of a choice, and at any rate they paid for his liquor and the roof over his head so Haymitch supposes it amounted to something in the end.

These days they seem to have moved onto flashier trophies, which suits Haymitch just fine. None of them would have compared to Briony, even if he was fucking them out of his own free will.

Nowadays Capitol folk mostly take pity on Haymitch. He knows the tabloids run stories about his taste for alcohol, and he knows such stories are not so far from the truth, but the last couple years he’s had to put up with pitying looks from the busybody wives of a dozen gamemakers and sponsors every time he makes his way to the open bar. But he still gets offers, sometimes, whenever he’s in the Capitol. He says yes, of course. He’s heard terrible stories about what happens to Victors who rebel. And he’s witnessed firsthand what Snow and his goons are capable of. 

“I usually charge five hundred,” Haymitch says, hoarsely. It’s usually embarrassing, the transaction, but not this bad. He can’t look Effie in the eye. “‘Course, that’s industry standard, for a Victor. I don’t set the rates.”

Effie puts up a hand to shush him. “I don’t want to pay you,” she says quietly. “I don’t want a Victor. I want a lover.” 

Somehow, the cloying word sounds anything but on her tongue.

And she really is very pretty.

He nods, and she opens her pink robe and reclines on the hotel bed. Naked, with her small white breasts and sharp collar bones, she looks like one of the ladies in the paintings Haymitch would sometimes see in Capitol folks’ mansions. Even at her most vulnerable -- what Haymitch guesses is her most vulnerable -- she still doesn’t quite look like a human being.

It is not until his face is buried deep inside of her that thoughts of honeypots and snares and Capitol espionage cross his mind. By this point, though, it’s too late.

  
  
  


****

Effie thinks she knows herself pretty well. She’s five foot six and her shoes are size seven. She likes buildings and clothes and statues and she doesn’t like germs or dogs. She doesn’t really care one way or the other about whatever honor her position as escort is supposed to afford her, but she likes having a job and a little money that belongs to her. She’s not supposed to have an opinion about the President, or the Games, and so she doesn’t.

She doesn’t like Haymitch very much, she doesn’t think. She’s not sure. She can’t explain why she did what she did the night before. It isn’t as if she’s a harlot. She’s actually fairly prudish, compared to most of her friends. She had a couple boyfriends at the Academy and a couple in college and liked sex with all of them just fine, thank you very much, but she isn’t the kind of person who does no-strings-attached. 

She’s certainly not the kind of person who does no-strings-attached with a backwoods brute like Haymitch. But it’s been a strange week and Effie’s having all kinds of emotions she doesn’t recognize. The shame was how it started, and then the nerves, and now _this_.

She avoids him for the rest of the Games, only keeping his company when absolutely required. She hopes Ornella and Ezra don’t notice anything heavy and awkward between them as they have their last supper together, the night before the first cannon sounds.

“I heard,” says Effie to Ornella, who isn’t touching her veal piccata, “that you’ve proved handy with a knife in training.”

“Not really,” says Ornella glumly. “And besides, it’s not like I’m going to be able to get close enough to _knife_ people.”'

“You never know,” lies Effie. “Maybe you’ll surprise us all.”

“Maybe,” says Ornella, pushing a forkful of capers around her plate.

“You’re lying to us,” says Ezra flatly. “You and Haymitch both. Look -- you can’t even look at each other.”

Effie looks down and bites her lip hard enough to draw blood. “That’s not why,” she says quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics at the beginning are from "Waiting Around to Die" by Townes van Zandt (which is, by the way, the song that Haymitch's dad used to sing)


	4. Chapter Four - August, After the Sixty-Third Games

_My mother hates her body_   
_We share the same outline_   
_She swears that she loves mine_   
_I blur at the edges_   
_I'm all soft shapes and lines_   
_Shapeshifting all the time_

_The stars have a lot to say_   
_About babies born in the month of May_   
_We are down to Earth_   
_We see eye to eye_   
_We dig our feet in_   
_My mother and I_   
_My mother and I_

_They called me an old soul_   
_When I was too young to know_   
_The difference between a soul and a ghost_   
_I feared what was inside_   
_Trapped in my body kept from the other side_   
_A spirit searching for her second life_

Ornella and Ezra die third and tenth, which isn’t bad, considering. Haymitch leaves on the train without saying goodbye and Effie isn’t going to see him again for another year. Which is fine.

Effie goes home.

Not to her Ravinstill Street flat -- no, something about it feels cold and lonely even though it’s midsummer. She can’t stand to be alone with her thoughts right now.

She goes to her parents’ house. She owes them a visit, anyway; they were both nearing fifty when they had her, and they’re not getting any younger. If she can pretend she’s being a virtuous daughter, tending to her aging parents, by coming home, she feels a little less pathetic.

Cordie’s there too, home from her first year at university for the Games holidays. Effie is more excited about seeing her.

The Trinkets’ house is in an old, tree-lined part of the city. It is a little too small to be called a mansion, at least not here in the Capitol, but it dwarfs the houses in District Twelve, even Mayor Evans’s house. Made of red brick, with imposing white marble columns flanking the door, it’s always felt more like a bank or a government building than a home to Effie. The effect is grand and not at all cozy.

Effie’s parents are not particularly cozy people either. Julius and Serena Trinket are the kind of old-fashioned, formal Capitol parents that thought the best course of action for raising Effie and her sister was to place them in the care of nannies for most of their childhoods and look at them sternly if they fidgeted or spoke at a formal dinner. But this is all Effie knows; she’s learned to admire them for it. After all -- emotions are so _messy_.

**

Her mother meets her in the formal drawing room.

She’s half a head taller than Effie, and her lips are most often pursed in disapproval at her daughter. Though she is a fashionable woman, her hair is its natural steely grey, uniform but for one severe streak of white, like a skunk. 

“Euphemia,” says Effie’s mother coolly, by way of greeting. 

“Hello, Mother.” 

Serena Trinket takes a seat on one of the deep red sofas they’ve had for as long as Effie could remember. When she was small, those sofas felt like the most wonderful uncharted territory in the world; they were expressly for company, and usually the nannies would snap at her for sitting in them, which only made them more inviting.

“Your tributes did terribly again,” says Serena. 

Effie rolls her eyes. 

“I got landed with _District Twelve_ , Mother, what do you expect?”

Effie’s mother shrugs. “Better, from you. Most girls aren’t lucky the way you’re lucky, you know. There are a thousand overqualified public relations graduates in the Capitol who would kill for an Escort position, even in hokey old District Twelve. Your father works very hard for you, Euphemia, and I doubt he appreciates being rewarded so.”

  
“Is Cordie home?” asks Effie, because there’s nothing more she can say to that.

  
“I don’t know, go see for yourself.”

So Effie goes upstairs, to the suite that she and her sister had spent their childhoods and teenage years in. 

The elevator opens up to their shared sitting room. It is unmistakably a childhood space, at once claustrophobic and nostalgic. 

There are frilly blue-and-white upholstered chairs and matching curtains and a wide television taking up one whole wall. 

Through the door on the far corner are the other rooms. Growing up, Effie and Cordie had each had their own bedroom and, at least since they were nine and fifteen, their own bathrooms, because Cordie had complained when it took Effie an hour each morning to get ready for Academy.

Sitting in the wide window seat, watching Caesar Flickerman’s show on the television, is Effie’s sister. Cordie switches off the TV and runs to her sister stepping forward from the elevator threshold.

“Effie!”

The sisters embrace. Cordie is practically a grown woman -- she turned eighteen last month -- but Effie swears she’s grown taller. Her deep blue eyes are level with Effie’s now, and Effie is wearing heels.

“How’s college?” 

Cordie shrugs. “Dull. I never should have let Mother convince me to study literature. Professors have a way of sucking the joy out of any book I might otherwise find interesting.”

  
“You could always study something else,” says Effie. “It’s not like it matters for when you graduate. When I was eighteen I was convinced I was going to have my own architecture firm by now.”

  
“Yes, but you’re doing something _so_ much better,” says Cordie. Effie winces. _Am I?_ “All my friends are jealous that I’ve got a sister in the Games industry. They’re always asking me what’s real, what’s scripted, any insider information you might be privy to.”

“None of it is scripted, Cordie,” says Effie, rolling her eyes. “What you see is what you get.”

“Hmm,” says Cordie. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Coffee would be great.”

Cordie taps a few keys on the touchpad on the wall and the Avox that has worked for the Trinkets since Effie was little soon arrives with a tray of delicate, lacy yellow biscuits and a steaming pot of coffee.

They don’t thank her. They’re not supposed to thank her. Effie doesn’t even know her name.

“Cheers”, says Cordie, pouring coffee into china cups and stirring in cream.

“And may the odds be ever in your favour,” says Effie, arching an eyebrow, which makes Cordie snicker. 

“You sound ridiculous saying that, you know,” she says. “I thought Escorts were supposed to be old and dull and pompous.”

  
“I don’t think they have a rule specifying that.”

“If they did, Father would have found a way to get around it,” says Cordie. She dunks a piece of biscuit in her coffee and takes a delicate bite. “So -- what else is new? Are you seeing anyone?”

Effie feels herself blush. “No,” she says, “I’m not. I’m a little busy with work as of right now.”

“Oh, please,” says Cordie. “You don’t have to go back to work until the next Reaping.”

“Well, I was thinking I’d use this as a springboard for some other public relations job in the meantime,” says Effie smoothly. “Something in the Ministry of Media maybe. All I have to do is tell them I’m a Cabbitt on Mother’s side.”

Cordie rolls her eyes. “If you get married, you don’t have to work at all. You can just do charities and things like Mother.”

“Doing charities and things” is Cordie’s ineloquent way of describing what Serena Trinket and her cohort of Capitol housewives do all day. They host garden parties and New Year’s galas and raise money for the Peacekeepers’ Association and orphans and widows and things like that. Effie thinks it’s really, really boring.

“Besides, there’s no one on the husband front right now, I told you. And I don’t think even Mother and Father are old-fashioned enough to arrange a marriage.”

“The practice is rather medieval,” agrees Cordie. Then her eyes grow wide as a possibility seems to dawn on her.

“What about _lovers_ ,” she says, hugging her knees to her chest.

Effie feels herself blush again.

“Mostly no,” she says. “There was someone, recently, but --” 

She avoids Cordie’s eyes.

“It was a silly thing. It was right when my Tributes first arrived in the Capitol, and I was under a lot of stress, and I did something, er, out of character. It’s probably best I don’t see him again.”

  
Cordie looks delighted. “Now _that’s_ interesting,” she marvels, “what was so wrong with him?” 

She gasps and grabs Effie’s forearm. “Effie, is he _married_?”

“No, not married,” says Effie. If only that was it. If only she’d cracked under pressure and come onto a married Capitol gentleman, and not the District Twelve mentor. One of those scandals, should it come out, could be damage controlled and PR’d under the rug. The other decidedly could not.

But that isn’t going to happen, she reminds herself. There are only two people in all of Panem who know what happened between Effie and Haymitch that night, and as far as Effie’s concerned, she is taking the secret to her grave, which leaves Haymitch.

Somehow she doubts that, back in District Twelve, Haymitch is running to tell all his friends about the Capitol bird he scored. 

“Well, when you decide to stop being so _mysterious_ , let me know,” says Cordie. She finishes the last of her coffee and taps the touchpad again. The Avox takes the tray away.

  
  


**

Well after midnight (and after a tense family dinner where Effie’s father had asked her “how the barbarians were doing” and her mother had continued to quiz her on whether she was in the right career and stared daggers at her when she went for a second helping) Effie peeks her head into Cordie’s room before retiring to her own. Her sister’s already lying down, reading a gossip magazine, her small figure bathed in a pool of warm light from her desk lamp.

Effie comes and sits at the foot of the bed. 

“How long are you going to be at home?” Cordie asks.

Effie shrugs. “As long as I need to. No more than a few days. But I’m only across town, Cordie. You never come to see me.”

“Like you want your kid sister hanging around.”

“Maybe I do,” says Effie. “I miss you sometimes.”

  
“Effie,” says Cordie suddenly, turning her head to face her sister. “The man you were talking about before -- the one you only slept with because you were nervous about the Games.”

  
“When you put it like that, it sounds so _uncouth_.”

“Sorry,” says Cordie. “Was it nice, though?”

Effie has to stop and think for a moment. Certainly it was good sex, but - _nice_? She can’t decide what’s weirder, her sister asking her about her sex life or trying to define whatever had happened between her and Haymitch on an axis of “nice” and “not nice”, whatever that means.

She almost surprises herself when she finds herself slowly nodding.

“Yes, it was, I think,” says Effie. “It was really nice.”

Cordie yawns delicately. “So why won’t you see him again?”

  
Effie is quiet for a moment. She wishes she could give Cordie a proper answer. Right now she’s not even sure she has a proper answer for herself. 

“Maybe I will see him again,” she says, “you never know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics at the beginning are from "My Mother and I" by Lucy Dacus


	5. Chapter Five - Autumn-Winter, After the Sixty-Third Games

_I woke up this morning in a strange place_   
_I looked into the mirror at a strange face_   
_Then I looked for you but you could not be found_   
_And then I felt the lonely comin' down_   
_I walked across the room to the empty bed_   
_Saw the imprint on the pillow where you laid your head_   
_The presence of you still lingered all around_   
_And once again I felt the lonely comin' down_

August fades into September, and September into a glorious District Twelve autumn, and autumn into a hard, bitter winter. There’s a flu outbreak of some kind in town, Haymitch hears. A couple of kids down in the Seam, their families too destitute for medicine, have already died.

He tries not to think about it. It makes him too angry.

He hadn’t been a sickly kid, at least, not the way Callum had been. He remembered more than a few winters in his youth when Ma was out of work and Callum was sick and Haymitch and his health were all that stood between them and a slow, miserable death. Of course, there was only so much money a child could earn. He would have gone to the mines like Dad the year of the Quarter Quell if fate hadn’t intervened.

In a way it had been kind of provident that it had been Haymitch who had been reaped. There was no way Callum would have made it back from the arena alive.

Not like it mattered in the end, of course.

Haymitch would visit the graves, if he could, but there are no graves. Dad’s body is still in some collapsed crevice in the mountains, and Ma and Callum and Briony are in some unmarked grave in the woods, casualties of Haymitch’s disobedience. Three sharp warnings against acting up again.

For the first years after, out of sheer terror, he complied. He was so chipper throughout the Victory Tour that Perdita had actually lectured him once about an amphetamine habit that he didn’t have.

But over the years, he’s grown more lax, phoning in the enthusiasm in his speeches, never bothering to hide his alcoholism, and now sleeping with the worst of Capitol women, forgetting his place.

But she had wanted it. She had initiated it. And for the life of him Haymitch still can’t figure out why.

At least he doesn’t have to see her again for six months. He’s not sure he’s going to be able to stand it.

The Victory Tour is particularly unbearable this year. The boy from Two won, which isn’t a surprise. He had been terrifying, towering over even Ezra. 

At least they never make Haymitch talk during the Victory Tour. He just sits in his folding chair, stands for the anthem, tries not to think about the conspicuous lack of a sixth chair on Mayor Evans’ other side. He goes home and drinks until he falls asleep.

****

His dreams are always at their most vivid after the Victory Tour. 

This time he is at the Reaping. Not the worst dream, luckily.

He can’t find Briony in the crowd; she must be with her sisters or her school friends, somewhere, lost in the vast throng of children. He ends up standing in a crowd of boys from school, bigger and tougher boys than he, that he’d somehow fallen into hanging around with that year. He was smarter than all of them, and they liked that. They’d spent most of their time shoplifting, mostly cigarettes and liquor from old Greasy Sae in the Hob, and Haymitch was the best at it; quick, small, nimble-fingered, nonthreatening. He had wondered sometimes rather they would have wanted him around if he didn’t possess such talents.

This year there are double the tributes, and Perdita announces this like it’s supposed to be great fun. 

He keeps casting furtive glances over at Callum, standing over with the twelve-year-olds and looking especially thin and unwieldy, like he might blow away in the wind. 

_Please not Callum please not Callum please not Callum_ , he thinks, and because it is a dream Haymitch knows already that it won’t be, but he can’t help repeating it.

Perdita pulls Maysilee’s name first, and Haymitch breathes a sigh of relief that it’s not Briony, though if any District Twelve girl had a shot at winning it would be his tough-as-nails girlfriend.

Haymitch sees Maysilee standing with a gaggle of townie girls from their year: Judy Gibson whose dad had been Haymitch’s dad’s boss at the mine and Fern McCutcheon whose parents owned the apothecary shop. Maysilee, Judy, and Fern had been the kind of mean, giggly girls that made fun of Briony for wearing feedsack dresses and somehow managed to whisper all through class without getting in any trouble. They’re not whispering now, though; for once, they’re dead silent.

She pulls one name after another: a younger girl that Haymitch doesn’t know and a boy called Delph he vaguely recognizes from the year above him in school. The half of Haymitch that is thirty years old knows exactly what is about to happen, but he is paralyzed, his hands clammy with sweat, waiting like he is sixteen and it’s happening in the waking world all over again.

The dream shifts before Perdita draws the last slip, and suddenly he is in the arena, that cruel garden filled with forbidden fruit. 

He is holding Maysilee’s hand, but he can’t bear to look at her face. It’s not as if he needs to. He has been here a thousand times, seen her wince and heard her draw sharp breaths. He’s got the scene better memorized than the damn national anthem.

But then she says “ _Haymitch_ ” and it’s not Maysilee’s voice, it’s another voice, a Capitol voice, and Haymitch’s stomach lurches. He forces himself to look down, and on Maysilee’s bleeding body is the sharp white face of Effie Trinket.

Haymitch wakes up more shaken than he’s been in a long time. For all their awfulness, in the last decade and a half his Games dreams have been nothing if not predictable. Never have they deviated from the same old miserable scenes. Something about Effie’s little surprise cameo makes everything feel fresher and more real than it has in a long time.

His hands tremble as he pours himself a glass of whiskey. He almost spills it on his nightstand.

He can’t get back to sleep after that, no matter how much he drinks, and he’s never quite felt comfortable in his Victors’ Village townhouse anyway, with its freezing stone floors and high ceilings, so he goes for a walk. 

He’s pretty sure no one’s supposed to be out this early, not unless you’re a baker or a miner or someone else whose livelihood depends on it, but he doesn’t particularly care. For whatever reason the Peacekeepers mostly seem to leave him alone these days. He supposes that’ll change when they notice he’s given up playing model Victor, but so far they haven’t. 

He walks to the edge of town, where row houses and shops give way to shacks and unmown grass and, further afield, past the barbed wire fencing, the woods and the hills. The sun has just begun to rise and transform the darkness into a soft blue morning; the first birds are beginning to wake, but otherwise it’s quiet. This used to be Haymitch’s favorite time of day, back when he had the discipline to get up early. Nowadays he mostly only sees it at the tail end of a restless night. Usually, sitting here helps him snap back to something close to all right, after the nightmares, but today he can’t shake the strangeness. Pretty audacious of Effie, he thinks, to occupy his mind like that without asking him, and make everything more difficult than it already is. He better not dream about her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics at the beginning are from "Lonely Comin' Down" by Dolly Parton


	6. Chapter Six - Sixty-Fourth Games

When Reaping time rolls around again, Effie is rather more jittery than she was last year. She tells herself it’s only the awkwardness of facing District Twelve after losing two of their children, but she knows that’s not all it is.

She certainly spent much more time getting ready this morning than she would have if there was no one she wanted to impress. Which is ridiculous, because Haymitch has the fashion sense of a piece of roadkill. But looking composed and put-together makes Effie feel better about herself, allows her to convince herself she’s in perfect control of whatever situation she’s been thrown into. Rather like that ratty security blanket Cordie dragged around until she was ten.

Today Effie’s security blanket is tinted emerald, with a deep green dress with a stiff taffeta accent collar and matching pumps. Her wig and her pantyhose and her lips are more of a soft celadon, the color of green tea. Traditional sensibilities would have it that this palette was out of place in mid-July, more suited to autumn or winter, but Effie likes it. It reminds her of the green of the forest-covered hills of Twelve. This is Effie’s attempt at fitting in, she thinks dryly to herself. And besides, she’s quite sure she read in one of her magazines that emerald was on trend this season.

This year she isn’t shown around the Justice Building, nor does she have an audience with the mayor; these appear to be niceties granted only to fresh meat. She is just ushered to the stage and told to make herself comfortable on one of the cold metal folding chairs until the ceremony starts. In a way, Effie’s glad. It’s always a little bit painful to make small talk with people from the Districts after a bad Games year. (Effie knows she’s got to get used to it if she stays District Twelve’s escort, save for a miracle every year until she retires. And even then, only one Victor returns, and the Districts offer two apiece. That’s still one “whoops, sorry your teenager died” a year.)

As nine o’clock grows nearer, the faint trickle of District Twelve children that have already begun to gather here widens into a roaring throng. Effie shades her eyes from the morning sun and wishes she’d brought a parasol. 

Evans and his wife take their seats next to her, but Haymitch’s chair is still empty. Effie wonders what happens if he doesn’t show up. He could probably fake illness to get out of it, she thinks; she’s pretty sure they’re not nearly as stringent about mentor attendance as they are possible tribute attendance. 

But he does show up, after all, ten minutes past nine. Effie purses her lips but doesn’t say anything. 

He doesn’t look well. Same long nose, same curtain of dark blond hair, same five-o-clock shadow and rumpled suit, but the circles around his grey eyes are a little darker, his skin a little sallower, the hollows of his cheeks a little deeper. He takes a seat next to her without a word, and the harsh, chemical scent of liquor immediately assaults Effie’s nose.

Effie tries not to wince.

****

Haymitch doesn’t actually get to talk to Effie until they’re on the train. It’s lunchtime, and the dining car table has been set with silver platters of pasta and fruit salad and rolls and brisket.

Effie’s only having the fruit salad. Capitol girls are always obsessed with watching their figures. He’s always thought that was funny. 

The tributes - Frances and Kieran, two scrappy, thin-faced Seam fourteen-year-olds - watch her with wide eyes. Haymitch remembers that look. The first time he ever saw somebody from the Capitol up close, he couldn’t stop staring. It had been Perdita, back when he was Reaped, and she wasn’t even beautiful. She had mostly looked silly in her great broad-brimmed hat with teal ostrich feathers and rings on every arthritic finger.

Haymitch shovels a forkful of pasta into his mouth. It’s good. Their food is always good.

“You know,” Effie says daintily, “punctuality is a sign of respect.”

Haymitch snorts. “Is this about me being late to the Reaping?”

“Obviously.”

“First words you’ve said to me since last Hunger Games, you know,” says Haymitch, reclining in his seat. “Figured you’d at least say hi or ask me how I’ve been all year.”  
He can’t quite tell under all that makeup, but he’s pretty sure Effie’s blushing. 

“Sorry,” she says measuredly. “How are you, then?”

“Terrible,” Haymitch replies cheerfully. He pops the cork of an expensive-looking bottle of liquor and pours some into his orange juice. This is most of the reason why he’s agreed to stay on as a mentor; his allotted two bottles of District Twelve bourbon per year go pretty fast, and the black market stuff he supplants it with isn’t cheap. This year, he thinks he might see if he can’t smuggle a few bottles back to the Victor’s Village in his suitcase. Peacekeepers probably have more important things to look out for, after all.

Effie sighs. She’s clearly in a terrible mood. Haymitch has never seen her lose her cool, but it’s only her second year here. There’s plenty of time for him to find out just how unpleasant Angry Effie is. 

“You,” she huffs, “are being _difficult_.” 

“Thanks, I try.”

“ _Haymitch_.”

**

Effie ends up coming to his quarters again, the first night on the train. Haymitch is surprised. She’d doubled down so hard on the prickly primness that he was sure she was keen on pretending their affair had never happened. 

It’s late, past midnight, and Haymitch can’t sleep, even with all the complimentary refreshments in his system. Kieran has turned out to be the kind of tribute who comes along once every five years or so and actually cares about the Games, actually thinks he has a chance, and all evening he’d been quizzing Haymitch on the best way to find shelter, the best way to hide from the other tributes, the best way to kill when he had to. When he gets a kid like this, it’s harder to ignore where he is and what he’s doing here.

This time she doesn’t bother to knock. Their doors don’t close here anyway. 

“I think,” she says, settling on the window seat, “we have to establish some boundaries.”

“You’re telling me,” says Haymitch incredulously. Who barges into someone’s private quarters past midnight in their pajamas to lecture them about boundaries?

“What happened last year was -- “

Haymitch holds his hand up to stop her. “A mistake, I know. I’ve made plenty of them before.”

I was actually going to say _lovely_ ,” says Effie. “Totally inappropriate for our positions, of course, and by all means something we should put a stop to, but lovely.”

Now it’s Haymitch’s turn to feel a flustered blush creep into his cheeks. 

“Uh, thanks. Yeah. It was.”

He isn’t drunk enough for this shit.

“I know we _should_ never speak of it again,” she continues breezily, “but I don’t see the harm, personally, in engaging in this kind of behavior if it’s only once a year. It _is_ a holiday, after all.”

District Twelve folks don't exactly consider the Games a holiday, but Haymitch doesn’t correct her. 

“I think about you all the time,” she confesses. “Capitol men are so _boring_.”

“I think about you too,” he says, dazed, though he’s sure he plays a very different role in Effie’s psyche than she does in his. 

“But you understand that it’s got to be totally hush-hush,” she says, “not just for my sake but -- “ she pauses and takes a deep breath, as if she’s unsure how to continue. 

“I love Panem, I really do,” she finally murmurs, “and I understand that the laws we have exist for a reason. We’d collapse into anarchy without them. But retribution can be harsh, and I’m sure you know that as well as I do.”

“Better,” says Haymitch. _There’s no way she knows about what happened to Ma and Callum and Briony, is there?_

“So we’re on the same page, then,” she says. 

“Mm.” It takes him a few minutes to process that what she said is almost, _almost_ , critical of the way things are. He’s never seen anything like it, not from somebody like her. Again, just like last year, a fleeting thought crosses his mind: could she be here to trick him into saying something just uncooperative enough, something they can’t prove he’s thinking? He shakes his head. Never, ever in a million years is he going to admit what he feels about the Games and the Capitol and the vast unfairness of everything to a Capitolite. Even someone he’s kind of fond of in spite of himself, like Effie. Being fond of her is dangerous.

“The Cranes are hosting a costume gala on Friday,” says Effie, “to celebrate the Games. Want to come with me?”

Haymitch stares at her.

“What about the _boundaries_ ,” he says weakly.

She shakes her head. “It’s a strategic maneuver. Everyone’s going to be there, which means there’s going to be loads of potential sponsors there to curry favor with. You charm them, I charm them, we talk up how brilliant and ruthless Frances and Kieran are. It might give them a little bit more of an advantage.”

“Huh,” says Haymitch, impressed. Never in a million years would Perdita have pushed for her tributes like this. “I don’t have a costume.”

“Oh, one of Frances and Kieran’s stylists can whip something up. I’ll ask them when we get to the living quarters.”

“You sure they won’t think it’s weird that I’m your date?”

Effie rolls her eyes. 

“You’re not going to be my _date_ , Haymitch, the two of us are District Twelve’s team. We’re going to be there as business partners.”

“Oh, right.”


	7. Chapter Seven - Sixty-Fourth Games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay, I was in a bit of a creative rut but I am BACK with unapologetically corny romance novel-y garden romance and costume balls and a couple Songbirds and Snakes references (which I'm finally getting around to reading, and it's great and gives me so much Capitol worldbuilding help we love to see it)  
> I realized that as far as I can tell none of the books or films seem to mention what the currency of Panem is which strikes me as kind of bizarre, so I came up with my own system. The names and how big each unit of currency is to each other is based on Ancient Roman currency since so much of the rest of Panem / the Capitol's society is, but for my own ease in writing/worldbuilding, one libra (plural librae) is about one modern US dollar. Enjoy and please leave a comment and let me know what you think !!

It’s Friday evening and Effie should be here any minute to escort Haymitch o the Cranes’ costume gala. Haymitch has no idea who the Cranes are, but Effie spoke their name like they were old friends, or like they were famous enough that it’s ludicrous that he’d need an explanation. Haymitch is willing to pander to somebody like that, for Frances and Kieran. High-profile folks thinking highly of them means more sponsors, and more sponsors means almost a fighting chance. 

Yesterday Effie had shoved him at Frances’s stylist, Cinna, and hissed something about making him look presentable. Standing in his underwear, with his costume lying on his bed, Haymitch can’t help but think to himself it’s a job well done.

Cinna is relatively new; he’d started two years ago like Effie and was even younger than she was, only in his early twenties. He has a refreshing, almost District down-to-earthness that almost makes Haymitch trust him. And Haymitch really likes the costume Cinna’s come up with, though he still thinks the idea of a costume party for grown adults is bizarre. Sometimes Capitolites really do strike him as a bunch of vicious, overgrown children, and Haymitch has never been fond of children.

Haymitch runs his hand over the long white scar on his abdomen where the girl from District One’s axe cut into his flesh. It’s faded a lot since his Games, thanks to Capitol medicine, but it’s never fully gone away. Its position and shape look almost innocent, like it’s the result of nothing more sinister than a childhood case of appendicitis. 

He wonders if Effie noticed it last year. She didn’t say anything, but there isn’t much to say about it, really. Effie saw the whole thing play out on TV. 

****

Effie meets him in front of his hotel room door. He knew she’d go all out, but whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t _this_.

Her wig is red-gold and waist-length; at her ankles is a gold-and-cream papier-mache contraption that Haymitch is pretty sure is supposed to be a giant seashell. She’s wearing a sheer, gauzy pastel pink thing that flutters when she moves. 

“What the hell are you supposed to be,” he says.

Effie rolls her eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m the Birth of Venus.”

“The what?” 

“Never mind,” says Effie. She gives him a once-over and scrunches her brows together like she’s unimpressed. “What are _you_ supposed to be? A pirate?”

“I’m Robin Hood,” says Haymitch, gesturing at the feather he stuck in his hatband. “You know, steals from the rich, gives to the poor?”

Effie’s expression darkens from annoyance to something worse.

“Haymitch”, she says through gritted teeth, “I am telling you this because I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. I think you should wear something else.”

“Why?” asks Haymitch blankly.

“Do I really have to explain to you why a Victor from the poorest district in Panem arriving at one of the wealthiest households in the Capitol dressed as someone who steals from the rich to give to the poor is not a good idea?”

Haymitch shrugs. “Honestly, I think that makes it kind of funny.”

“Well, it’s _not_ ,” she hisses, “it’s _provocative_. And provocative is the opposite of what you need to be right now.” 

“It’s a little late to change,” says Haymitch. “What do you suggest I do?”

“I don’t know. Just tell people you’re a pirate or something. Actually, don’t talk. At all. Let me do the talking for both of us.”

“Why don’t you cut out my tongue and make me an Avox? Save yourself some trouble.”

Effie gives an exasperated little sigh. “Not funny.”

**

“I want you to behave yourself tonight,” says Effie as their hired car pulls into the long circular driveway of the Crane mansion. “Don’t drink too much, don’t say anything that will reflect poorly on the children, or embarrass me - “ she fidgets nervously with a lock of her red-gold wig. “The Cranes are quite a prestigious family, you know. I already feel a bit, er, _nervous_ at their events even without you tagging along.”

“I thought you said you came from old money,” says Haymitch.

“Not old money like the Cranes. They make the Trinkets look like a lot of District peasants. They’re even personal friends of the President.”

It has never occurred to Haymitch that President Snow might have personal friends. It’s almost funny to think about.

On a whim, Haymitch reaches for Effie’s hand and guides it away from her wig. He rests his own hand over hers for a moment and squeezes it before she yanks it away.

“And don’t do _that_ , either,” she says. 

“Whoops, sorry.”

And with that they step out of the car. 

Haymitch has been to plenty of Capitol parties, including the President’s palace during his victory tour, but he’s always a little blown away, and a little revolted, all at once, by the decadence. Effie is right about the Cranes’ house; it’s nearly as big as Snow’s and just as grand, with marble pillars and gurgling fountains and lush green gardens. 

“Look at that portico,” murmurs Effie. Haymitch has no idea what a portico is. “I was always jealous of it. And those gorgeous Corinthian columns - who designed this house, I wonder? I was always too shy to ask.”

“Shy” is not one of the words Haymitch would use to describe Effie Trinket. He is beginning to feel a little intimidated himself, if even Effie’s normally unflappable social prowess is vulnerable here. Which is nonsense, he reminds himself, because all Capitol people are the same and a few extra million librae or a slightly more prestigious surname doesn’t mean much all things considered. 

Haymitch needn’t have worried about Effie, he realizes as they arrive, because she is as comfortable here as he is on his hilltop at dawn with a bottle of liquor. He’s scarcely had time to settle in when she leaves his side to greet a seemingly impossible number of old friends, flitting around every corner of the room like a nervous pigeon loose in the District Twelve train station. A very pink pigeon. 

Occasionally she will return to his side and practically throw at him yet another important-seeming friend of hers, chattering about how well they’re going to get along and how wonderful their tributes are this year. Haymitch plays along, if only for Frances and Kieran’s sake. He likes a middle-aged, heavyset man called Plutarch Heavensbee best. He nods sagely and scribbles notes on an electronic tablet as Haymitch recounts optimistic half-truths about his tributes’ natural talent and quick minds. 

“These two sound like kids to look out for,” says Heavensbee. He gives Haymitch a disconcertingly warm smile, as if they’re talking about something normal. Or, Haymitch supposes, as if Heavensbee considers him one of them, assumes he doesn’t see anything wrong with the Games. (Effie _did_ introduce him as a Victor, right? Haymitch is on his third whiskey sour of the night, and his memory isn’t as sharp as it could be.)

He likes the endless parade of giggly women Effie knows from school a lot less. They remind him of Fern and Judy and Maysilee a little bit. He guesses this kind of woman exists everywhere.

After one of them leaves, Effie rolls her eyes. “That’s Phoebe Crane. She was in my sister’s year at school. You’d think with all the money she has she’d have hired a more creative stylist. I think she’s the sixth nymph I’ve seen tonight.”

“How dreadful,” says Haymitch, deadpan.

“Isn’t it,” agrees Effie, apparently oblivious to the fact that Haymitch is teasing her. “You’ve been impressively behaved tonight,” she adds, which makes Haymitch feel like a particularly well-trained pet. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, I guess,” says Haymitch. “But lucky’s more like it. People have been damn near bearable. And nobody’s asked me what my costume is.”

“The children are really going to benefit, I think. I’ve got loads of potential sponsors even before training starts -- Plutarch, Felix, Honoria…”

“I’m proud of you,” says Haymitch, and he means it. Sure Effie’s a cog in a rotten machine but she’s damn good at what she does and she’s using those talents to help his tributes. _Their_ tributes, though Haymitch wagers he has a lot more of an emotional attachment to them than she does. But regardless of Effie’s personal feelings toward the tributes, and toward the districts, she’s an ally, and a good one. Not quite someone to trust, but someone he doesn’t feel bad about working with.

It doesn’t hurt that she’s the most beautiful woman Haymitch has known in fifteen years, of course. And she is so much sexier when she is in her element; when her mind is working a million miles a minute, when she sniffs out connections and sponsors like a hunting dog. He can tell she is doing what she loves.

****  
Haymitch really does clean up nicely, Effie thinks, even if he’s at least a drink or two past “tipsy” and the dark circles and gaunt cheekbones are still here. She should have sent someone from Frances and Kieran’s prep team to assist Cinna in getting him ready for the gala.

But he looks handsome, and as dignified as someone in a fancy dress costume _can_ look. And he hasn’t snapped at a single prospective sponsor or made an unfortunate quip about his disdain for Capitolites or even been noticeably drunk enough that anyone who hasn’t been watching him like she has could tell.

In another life, if Haymitch was born here instead of District Twelve and met her at school or at a party or at the opera, she could be taking him here as a proper date, as a _boyfriend_ even. It seems terribly unfair that only the circumstances of his birth dictate otherwise, but that is the way of the world and Effie has never been one to question rules. Rules are there for a reason, after all.

But after a while she looks up from yet another strategic conversation to find Haymitch missing. He can’t have gone far, of course; there’s no way the chauffeur would’ve driven him anywhere. But still Effie feels a pang of nervousness in her stomach because her first thought is, of course, that the man’s gone and gotten himself in some kind of trouble. 

He isn’t at the open bar or at any of the tables of food, either, and Effie finds herself growing more and more worried. Eventually she finds him: in the back garden, alone, sitting on a carved stone bench in a corner surrounded by thick hedges, as if he is trying to disappear, like a child playing hide-and-seek. She sits beside him. Haymitch doesn’t look up.

“You can’t just run off like that, Haymitch,” Effie murmurs.

“I’m not allowed to excuse myself for a minute?” Haymitch is drunk, drunker than usual even. His words, and his scent, are heavy with alcohol. Effie glances around quickly to make sure they are truly alone, then covers his large, calloused hand with her small and manicured one, the way he did to her when she was jittery on the way here. His hand is trembling like an old man’s.

“Of course you are,” says Effie softly. “Of course. Sorry. Are you all right?”  
Haymitch shrugs. “I just needed some time alone. Staying in places like that for too long makes everything worse.”

“You were doing so well, before,” says Effie. “I couldn’t tell anything was bothering you.”  
“I’m a television star by trade,” Haymitch says dryly. “Acting’s what I do.”

His rueful little observation makes Effie think of her sister asking her, last year, how much of the Games was scripted. She had honestly been able to tell her that everything they saw on television was true, but Haymitch apparently seems to think otherwise.

“All the pageantry gets to me,” confesses Haymitch. “The galas and the interviews and the costumes and everyone acting like the kids should be having the time of their lives until the Games start. It’s like fattening up a New Years’ goose before you slit its throat.”

“My mother says when she was a girl they used to keep the tributes in the monkey cage at the Capitol Zoo.”  
Haymitch bark-laughs. “Bullshit.”  
“I don’t know if I _believe_ her,” says Effie. “But it’s a funny notion, don’t you think? It would certainly cost us a lot less taxpayer dollars.”

“Can I kiss you?” asks Haymitch suddenly. 

Effie frowns. “I’d like that, but -- you’re drunk, Haymitch, really drunk.”

“Effie, I don’t think there’s been a time you’ve seen me when I wasn’t. I’m _a_ drunk.”

“You’ve got a point,” says Effie. “And -- out here in the open -- anyone could stumble upon us. Media people, somebody who knows my parents or the Gamemakers or -- “

Haymitch silences her by putting his lips to hers. She does not complain.

  
  


****

 _Outdoor sex!_ Outdoor sex at the _Cranes’ mansion_ , at a gala attended by all the biggest names in Capitol society -- Effie might as well have decided to strut stark naked down the Corso at noon on the first day of the Games season. But suddenly Haymitch’s hands were on her breasts, and his lips on her neck, and she wanted it more than anything in the world, and there _was_ that very convenient mass of thick hedgerow behind them, and now she’s done something she’d never have thought she’d do in a thousand years. At any rate, she’s lucky no one interrupted them, especially not Phoebe Crane or any of her gossipy overgrown-schoolgirl friends. It turns out the back garden is the last place anyone is interested in at a Crane event. (Or maybe they figure it’s the territory of those engaging in scandalous trysts and out of respect for their privacy, lovers here are left alone.)

It is a nearly perfect place for such things, if it has to be outside. And if there have to be no mirrors in sight.

“Haymitch,” mumbles Effie, turning pinker than her gown, “I am quite sure my wig is crooked. Would you -- “

“Of course, sweetheart,” drawls Haymitch, “though I’ll warn you that I’m drunk enough that anything I do to fix it may not be an improvement.” 

“Just try to make it look like we weren’t -- “  
“Fucking in the Cranes’ back garden? Your wish is my command,” says Haymitch, adjusting the wig with a flourish. “There. Perfect. I think.”

They are lying in the grass, which is yet another thing Effie wouldn’t have done in a thousand years if Haymitch hadn’t brought her here. It’s wet and itchy and Effie’s sure it’s staining her dress green. She tries to forget about it and adjusts herself so that her head, at least, rests on Haymitch’s chest. She feels the wig slip again and is reminded why she doesn’t lie down in public.

“Do you think we could leave,” she asks him, “without saying goodbye? Just slip out and go back to our living quarters?”

Haymitch shakes his head and laughs. “Who are you and what have you done with Effie Trinket?”

“I just want you to be comfortable.”

  
“I am comfortable. But yes, please. I’m not sure there’s much more of that gala I can stand, and I don’t think going back in there is the best idea. The chauffeur might not suspect much, not since it’s so dark in the car, but in there --”

“You’re absolutely right. The last thing the children need is any raised eyebrows about what their mentor and escort were doing together when they slipped away from the crowd.”

“You’re a smart one, Effie,” says Haymitch. “Too smart for them.” He shakes his head and even in the dark Effie can tell he looks sad for a moment, though she can’t think why.

**Author's Note:**

> I got Really Into THG / Hayffie over quarantine and this is the end product of that, I guess. Let me know what you think please! PS the title comes from "Heavy Crown" by Trixie Mattel. I recommend a listen if you want to set the tone for the fic, but it's not neccessary.


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